This Is The End isn’t for everybody – by a long shot. But for those who enjoy the likes of Pineapple Express, Harold & Kumar, and The Hangover… and maybe a zombie movie or two… then This Is The End is most definitely for you. It’s disturbingly comical. Absurdly funny. Satirically sickening. In other words, it’s quite good, especially for a comedy about the apocalypse. The movie stars a bunch of movie stars playing fictional versions of themselves – or at least, I hope they are fictional versions (yeah, I’m talking to you Michael Cera!). Here’s the gist:

A series of catastrophic events strike Los Angeles, disrupting a blow-out party at James Franco’s house. Franco, Seth Rogen, Jonah Hill, Jay Baruchel, Danny McBride, and Craig Robinson find themselves virtually trapped inside the house as the world around them falls apart. Their fight for survival amidst the chaos is ultimately a story of friendship, fate, and redemption. And maybe a little damnation too.

This Is the End is loaded with quirky cameos – some more disgusting than others. It all works, in part, because the actors are not above, or below, taking potshots at their most memorable and not-so-memorable roles. If you’re totally unfamiliar with the main cast (Franco, Rogen, Hill, Baruchel, McBride, Robinson), then This Is The End could be painful to watch. But if you’ve got at least some sense of their personas on-screen and off, then prepare to be entertained. And grossed-out.

This Is The End is rated R for crude and sexual content throughout, brief graphic nudity, pervasive language and some drug use. Yeah, it’s got all that. But it’s pretty darn funny too.

1 Comments

Ellen Carl,
July 18, 2013:

This is the kind of movie that I should like. I loved Super Bad and The Hangover, but god, I hated this movie. I found it to be self-indulgent and annoying. Plus, I am decidedly not a horror fan — so those elements of the movie did not amuse me at all. I think part of it is James Franco, I find his off-screen persona to be so off-putting that I can’t watch him on screen any more without judging him. And as usual for Hollywood these days, there was not a single female character that had more than a few lines. I’m not saying don’t go see it — in fact, I’m telling my friends to go see it if they think they might like it because I want to hear what they have to say about it. So far the opinions have been about equally divided. If you see it, let us know what you think.